December 28, 2012

Yesterday, I was asking: Why was that prop so important to David Gregory? If possession of that high-capacity magazine was a crime, and the NBC folk knew it and had even contacted the police and thus even knew they'd created rock-hard evidence that they knew it, why did they go ahead and have Gregory flaunt that illegal possession on television? They had to have thought it was a devastatingly powerful prop. My first guess was that they imagined that viewers — some viewers, at least — would find the object itself scary.

"No. It doesn't look that threatening to me. If that's what you were thinking. No. It just doesn't."

"What do you mean? Are you insane? This magazine holds thirty rounds."

"So."

"So? So? So? Is that all you got? It holds thirty!"

"So. It's small. Looks like a PEZ dispenser to me."

"WHAT? So, this is amusing to you? You find this amusing."

Caption: "It holds 30." I'm not sure exactly why that jogged my thinking, but suddenly I understand the drama Gregory (and his people) were trying to enact. It's a deep psychic memory of childhood. Gregory sought dominance over his interlocutor, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre, and the idea — in the act of picking up that magazine and beginning an interrogation about it — was that Gregory would become (subliminally) a parent figure who would push LaPierre into the subordinate role of the little boy, the cowering child confronted with undeniable evidence of his wrongdoing. What's THIS I found in your room?

The plan was for LaPierre to babble lamely, scrambling to explain it away, like the kid trying to concoct some cockamamie reason why that (whatever) got into his room. He'd look foolish and guilty, as Dad continues to hold up the item which the kid knows will be the defeat of every idea that flashes through his stupid, stupid brain.

The scenario didn't play out as scripted. LaPierre is a stolid veteran of many a confrontational interview. He's not going to let the interviewer get the upper hand that easily. Somebody needs to tell Gregory: We all want the hand. Hand is tough to get.

42 comments:

The parental tongue lashing from the outraged liberal has become so expected and boring that I, like the trapped teenager, shrug my shoulders, roll my eyes up and look at the ceiling whenever the outraged liberal explodes.

Race and gay stuff really get them going.

I guess they plan to ground the NRA for a month and take away the keys to daddy's car.

My sister-in-law stayed with us for the holidays. She uses firearms as part of her job. (The job is legal, by the way.) She's not very political, and firearms are just something used for her job - they're not something she uses for recreation nor does she have any other interest in them. And she was perplexed about the whole high capacity clip banning impulse. "It only takes about a second to switch clips. Take away the high capacity clips and it doesn't really stop anything."

Which mirrored my own thoughts, but I don't own firearms. I just don't get the thinking process behind banning high capacity clips and magazines. It just doesn't accomplish much.

(I also don't get the point in owning high capacity clips either. Unless you've got a fully automatic weapon I just can't see the point.)

"I just don't get the thinking process behind banning high capacity clips and magazines. It just doesn't accomplish much."

The gambit is to get a victory, a win, and push the face of the losers into shit if you can, in order to gain momentum for the next victory, so that you can again humiliate and degrade any winger gun owners and intimidate any good folks who happen to have hunted in the past.

You start the process in motion with a win, and you aren't sure which win will be the one win to start it, but you keep trying for it.

Keep it up and over time you end up with your goal of banning the whole thing.

The populace has a short memory. So just add a little at a time. Kind of like seat belt laws. Driver first, passenger second, air bags, side bags, next breath analyzer, then GPS 'black boxes' to track you.

Look at U.K. one ban after another from the '50s to '90s and now basically no guns (so 'knife control' is their bleat now.)

the idea... was that Gregory would become (subliminally) a parent figure who would push LaPierre into the subordinate role of the little boy, the cowering child confronted with undeniable evidence of his wrongdoing. What's THIS I found in your room?

I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.

A physical object gives the audience something tangible to focus on. McCarthy used an object(the list) to amplify his message. The emotional impact becomes greater than with mere abstract concepts(high capacity magazines are bad – there are communists in the govt.)

It's the reason the GOP displayed the huge stack of paper that represented the Obamacare law. It's the reason teachers use teaching aids.

There's something magical and powerful in the "objecthood" of guns and ammo, but it wears off when you own a gun and have handled the gun and bullets for a while. (the awe gets replaced by respect and a sense of responsibility in the normal person) But never having handled guns, I'm guessing, that's why Gregory was enthralled by the magazines, whereas they would have absolutely no effect whatsoever on LaPierre. If he was aiming at shock value for non-gun owners, Gregory probably would have gotten "more bang for his buck" if he had held up a single bullet of the type used by the shooter and said, "Imagine having a magazine which carries thirty of these." Bullets are scary looking, not magazines.

I recall from way back in the Carter years, a hearing where the head of the CIA was asked about a CIA handgun that shot poisoned darts. The gun was displayed by the questioners and then an aide tried to pass it to the head of the CIA, who kept his hands down and refused to take it.

Had the CIA chief taken that pistol, it would have been a front page picture in every paper in the world.

Had the NRA head taken the magazine from Gregory, a picture of LaPierre holding that instrument of death would have been on the front page in a similarly condeming fashion.

"I just don't get the thinking process behind banning high capacity clips and magazines. It just doesn't accomplish much."

Gun control isn't about controlling guns. It's about controlling people. There are no "reasonable restrictions" because there is no middle ground. There's just the Chinese Water Torture...drip, drip, drip...of a society increasingly enslaved to "Progressive" power.

*"Progressive" in scare quotes because there is really nothing progressive about the political Left.

If I were confronted with one of the gangs I see each week on Gangland, teens with multiple high cap mags each, I'd sure as hell want all the firepower I could carry and use. One called the East Coast Bloods were walking around slashing other people with razors just to build the Bloods' credibility as dangerous people.

I'd want a Glook with 3 extra 10 shot magazine or however many they carry.

I don't plan on visiting that area any time soon, but it I lived there I'd own a gun and keep it out of signt. And be pissed that they wouldn't let me advertise it.

Changing magazines takes less time than changing a memory card in a digital camera, about one to two seconds. So putting the emphasis on limiting magazines, as done in the 90s to 10 rounds vs 15 or 30 rounds is the ultimate red herring.Making that the issue misses the point entirely. The only issue that matters is the mental state of the person with the weapon, an issue that the anti-gun crowd refuses to deal with because it requires thinking and logic. So they go for the simple, but unconstitutional and practically impossible answer, 'ban all guns'.

I have a Pez dispenser I keep in my cubicle at work as a "decoration." It's a Santa Claus Pez dispenser. I keep it as a decoration and a protector. It was given to me used and I have no proof it ever actually had Pezes in it. Since I'm lazy, I keep it out 24/7/365 with my few other Christmas decorations.

But, when threatened, I hold it up and pull the head back with my thumb. My attacker then freezes in silent fright, then turns and leaves in a very deliberate, fast pace never to threaten me again. Rumors are that at night it wanders the building like a small Chucky doll.

AST wrote:I'd want a Glook with 3 extra 10 shot magazine or however many they carry.

I Glook? I suppose you mean a Glock, which is German (or Austrian if you ask the POTUS) for bell. Glock started out as a maker of expensive knives for the culinary trade. They pioneered the use of high strength composites in knife handles. By replacing the traditional wooden grips with plastic Glock knives could be safely sterilized in high temperature commercial dishwashers. Later they leveraged their dominate hold on composite materials technology to introduce a mostly non-metallic handgun.

When Glock weapons were first imported into the US, the David Gregorys of the day (you know, heavy breathing, ignorant media drama queens) tried to float the notion that Glock guns were made to evade detection by metal detectors.

A Glock 19 is an excellent 9mm pistol without doubt -- you carry 18 shots (17 in the mag and one in they chamber) and the whole thing weighs less than 2 pounds thanks to the composite frame -- but the good old Model 1911A1 Colt .45 is still the gun of guns.

Liberals (er, now "progressives") have some deep rooted issues they cannot be honest with the rest of us about. The issue of particular firearms accessories is simultaneously about purging the world of the means of violence, they expect to purge the world of violence itself.

At the same time they want to bolster and protect the government monopoly on violence. The government cannot have too many guns. Liberals have no problem with Mao's statement that power comes from the barrel of a gun.

A citizen who is able to defend himself doesn't have to call upon government professionals to protect himself. He does cower in fear nearly as often and thus he doesn't need to huddle in the secure shadow of elites.

Since the Second Amendment excitedly is to allow citizens at least some power with with to resist a government that has run amok, firearms in the hands of private citizens are a direct affront to elites on at least thee different fronts. That is why the right of private citizens to possess and effective means of self defense will always be under attack.

Know what's frustrating? No, not Romney forgetting to highlight Obama's role in the 2008 crash --well, yes that too, but this is close to the same thing:

This John R Lott book "More Guns, Less Crime" --it's the definitive empirical 'how it is' study of the studies.

Ergo, for example, LaPierre in the Pez debate had no need to try to justify the Constitution (folks like Gregory are as likely agin it as fer it anyway); as well he had no need to rely on speaking of the rule-of-law principle (far over the head of his critic anyway).

Because with a few sentences, statements of the matters of fact that are actually the issues of contention, uttered while patting the book nearby on the table, LaPierre either destroys the oppo, or forces the oppo to destroy itself ("we don't need no stinkin badges" --and so forth).

The stats ARE the argument, for cryinoutloud.

So, the Constitution supports the reality, and vice versa. This to me would be the way to present the case --as an aggressive interrogation into the question:

''What is the case for ignoring the data in order to harm the population on un-Constitutional grounds?''

and/or

''Do you understand that you are asking the nation to increase the numbers of victims of crime?''

...and such like, building to a Big Finale:

''Since there is reason NOT to restrict 2A on 'superior rights' of public safety, why on earth do you STILL want to do it?''

''What else could it possibly be but that you want the citizens helpless to resist your plans to create a secret-police state?''

I read a comment on another blog (days ago, no link, sorry) by a western rancher who said that one day, on his own property, he was charged by six wolves (anyone see The Grey?

He said he had his .223 semiauto with him and began firing as soon as he saw them. He added he was glad he had a 30-round mag because he had to shoot almost all of it, killing two wolves, before the other four fled.

A magazine change might have cost him his life. But yeah, D.G., no one needs a 30-round mag.

Anyone other than me notice the almost all gun controllers have an exclusively Upper-Northeast Urban worldview?

I did not buy a carry 9mm because I think I'm going to be mugged. It is because I was attacked last year by a pit bull. I do mean attacked, not just threatened; it was hand-to-paw-and-teeth for awhile. Never again. As I said on my post about it, I would feel safer carrying a light machine gun, but one does what one can.

(I also don't get the point in owning high capacity clips either. Unless you've got a fully automatic weapon I just can't see the point.) SWWBO got part of it. When I go to the range, it is very convenient, and saves time to preload all the clips/magazines I will be shooting with, so that I don't wast time reloading. The second reason you want larger clips/magazines. Someone who is attacking sets the time and place of the attack and can bring whatever they like to the attack, smaller magazines? No problem just bring more. However, someone who is defending, is reacting to an attack and generally only has 1 or 2 magazines. If the defender is facing an armed attacker, fewer rounds put him or her at a disadvantage. Smaller clips/magazines actual tilt the odds to attackers rather than defenders. So are counterproductive to public safety.

What stands out to me is how all the media were on the same Alinsky page with the Democrat Party, targetting the NRA trying to destroy and discredit them.

Note how nobody in the psychological community, or, more specifically, the ACLU has been held to any account about their culpability in securing the rights of nutjobs to walk amongst us not taking their meds.

The Glock has a composite handle. The frame of the gun is metal - it has to be because the explosion of the bullet would destroy plastic.

Glocks are about eighty percent metal, twenty percent composite plastic. They are detected by metal detectors, and the composite plastic is dense enough to show up (slightly lighter) on X-ray machines.

Way back in the early 60s I found myself drafted into the Army. I was issued an M1 Garand. The Army had an endless supply of Ammo for which to practice. All of us got really good at shooting. (After all, isn't that a basic skill in being a soldier?) Just after basic training, I was issued an M14. (later called an M1-A) It was basically an M1, but with a 15 round magazine loaded into the rifle from beneath the receiver. (We all liked it as it had 7 more rounds than the M1's 8). We were shown that takeing 2 or 3 magazines and taping them together upside down, we could push the lever dropping the empty into our waiting hand, flip it, and push the fresh magazine into the receiver. Took about a second and no fumbleing around for a fresh magazine. I am wondering if two 15 round magazines taped together and held up by some empty suit on TV would be a crime. Just wondering......

Way back in the early 60s I found myself drafted into the Army. I was issued an M1 Garand. The Army had an endless supply of Ammo for which to practice. All of us got really good at shooting. (After all, isn't that a basic skill in being a soldier?) Just after basic training, I was issued an M14. (later called an M1-A) It was basically an M1, but with a 15 round magazine loaded into the rifle from beneath the receiver. (We all liked it as it had 7 more rounds than the M1's 8). We were shown that takeing 2 or 3 magazines and taping them together upside down, we could push the lever dropping the empty into our waiting hand, flip it, and push the fresh magazine into the receiver. Took about a second and no fumbleing around for a fresh magazine. I am wondering if two 15 round magazines taped together and held up by some empty suit on TV would be a crime. Just wondering......

Magazines have (like that Pez dispenser, an internal spring - clips do not.

To the best of my knowledge, the last "modern" semi-automatic firearm that used a "clip" is the "U.S.RIFLE CAL .30 M1", aka The Garand, and it was designed in the '20's. There may be others, but they (like the Garand, are relegated to collections, and are not in widespread use).